Patriot Guard reaches two-year mark

Monday

Aug 27, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 27, 2007 at 3:22 AM

Two years ago Monday, members of the American Legion Riders, among other groups, climbed on their motorcycles for what would be the first of many rides. This was the inaugural ride of the yet unnamed Patriot Guard.

Julie Anderson

Two years ago Monday, members of the American Legion Riders, among other groups, climbed on their motorcycles for what would be the first of many rides.

This was the inaugural ride of the yet unnamed Patriot Guard.

"At the time, what I did was get ahold of Cregg Hansen and Steve McDonald, who are considered the founders of the Patriot Guard, too, and told them that I was going to discuss it with the American Legion," said Terry "Darkhorse" Houck.

The idea had actually arisen back in July when Terry’s wife, Carol, read a newspaper article about a group of protestors -- the Phelps -- protesting at a funeral in Oklahoma.

When they found out the protestors would be at a governors' meeting in Wichita, they went to stand between the governors and the protestors at the Hilton.

The first funeral came in October of that year, when the group traveled to Chelsea, Okla., for a funeral.

By that time, there were more groups getting involved, so they came up with a name, Patriot Guard.

"We had six to eight names," Terry said. "How I came up with the name Patriot was the movie ‘The Patriot.’ I thought this is kind of like the revolutionary days.

"Then I started thinking about how we’re guarding, and I started thinking about the Army National Guard, Air National Guard, then Patriot Guard."

About 43 riders traveled to Kansas to meet up with others in Oklahoma.

At first, Terry received some resistance from the law enforcement in Chelsea when he called to let them know they were coming down.

"He (the chief of police) said, 'Nope, I don’t want you guys down here. We’ll take care of it’," Terry said.

Terry told him before the night was over they would be invited guests, and they were.

"A lot of people who go for the first time come to me and say it was overwhelming," she said. "I had no idea what I would be doing."

Now, two years later, their reason for attending funerals has changed slightly.

While they are still there to honor the soldiers, they don’t care if the Phelps are there or not.

They attend any funeral, if invited by the family, within a 200-mile radius and will continue doing that until all of the soldiers are home.

"I think to me personally, it’s the families," Hansen said. "You want to honor that soldier, but when they leave this world, there’s not much you can do, but the families, what they’re going through we can help."

"That was the main thing," said Doug "Grey Eagle" Lehman, another original member. "Just protect the families. They had enough to deal with. They didn’t need to listen to any people who didn’t know what they were talking about. Our main goal was to shield them and do whatever it took to get that done. It’s very eye-opening that people have those beliefs."

The reactions they have gotten have shown them they are doing the right thing.

"When the families took time after the funeral and came and thanked us and the city people at Chelsea came out to thank us, we just knew then, we knew that it was going to be the right thing to do," Hansen said.

Although they consider everyone who went on the first funeral ride to Chelsea to be founding members, there are a core group of them who have been in it from the beginning. In addition to Hansen, Houck and Lehman, other founding members were Steve McDonald, Greg Hansen, Chuck and Monica Barshney and Dennis Scuffham.